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27/02/2006

'In theory, traditional court processes and attitudes to civil liberties could work. But the modern world is different from the world for which these court processes were designed.'

This statement was made in a national newspaper by the Prime Minister of Great Britain. It is truly chilling.

15 comments:

Jac
said...

"could" work? Interesting use of the word for a barrister.

Part of it is true - the modern world IS different, these days we are meant to have freedom of speech, the presumption of innocence, and not have to justify our existence to the State. All those handy little things traditional court processes were set up for, and which didn't actually exist at the time.

This was taken from an article written by Blair in The Observer. It was not challenged, but was written in response to the article by Henry Porter I linked to last week. I imagine he was also prompted to write by the recent Amnesty International report.

There lies the problem with our electoral system. Imagine being a staunch 'old' Labour supporter with a similar MP. You wish to vote for your MP who is a good solid backbencher. Your vote will indirectly lead to New Labour types being returned to power. What do you do?

A truly depressing conundrum ... I intend to take the cowards way out and abstain from voting in the next general election .... Yes I know that many fought and died to give, and allow me to keep the franchise ..... I am truly grateful for all that..... But.....just who does one vote for? As far as I can tell they are all as bad as each other ..... it is precisely the fact that the perception by so many is of Parliamentarians as all being self seeking charlatans.Truly depressing ..... the proposal of TB to hand the "crown" to GB without so much as a by your leave is just the thin edge of the wedge .... even the Tories following the coup that unseated Thatcher had a leadership contest that gave the appearance of openess

Sooner or later the sleeping behemoth that is the Great British public will wake up to all the lies and spin that they have been fed ..and do the decent thing ..... whatever that is.

It's getting harder now for staunch 'old' Labour supporters with a similar MP, as many of these are of retiral age and replacements are not going to be local, they are bussed in from Labour HQ with 'New Labour' stamped in their DNA code for their ID cards.

Not that the other parties are any better. I found it hard to recognise a local accent in any of the candidates at the last General Election.

Very good points anon. It is interesting that when a candidate breaks from their party and stands as some kind of independent, the official candidate always seems to do significantly better. (Except for Ken Livingstone, but he was well-known in his own right already)

That wasn't the case in Blaunau Gwent (spelling might be faulty there) at the last election though. The Labour Party insisted on an all-women shortlist and selected a non-local, when everyone in the area expected the candidate to be the previous MP's agent - who happened to be male and obviously not qualified for the short-list!

He then stood as an independent, and despite battling extreme ill-health, having had to have an operation for a brain tumour in the middle of the campaign, romped home with a huge majority. I think BG was previously regarded as one of the safest Labour seats in the UK (you know, they don't count the Labour vote there, they weigh it)

However, that was then and this is now - and Labour don't hold BG anymore.

More New Labour double speak that could have come straight from Orwell's pen. I despair, I truely despair. Can no one stop these people????? Seems the more brazen they are, the more people believe what they say rather than the evidence of their actions. What will be next? Will they rebrand themselves as the National Socialist party?